By IndiaTomorrow.net,
Bhubaneswar, 14 Aug 2015: Two weeks after the Dalit Christian couple were killed allegedly by police personnel suspecting them to be Maoists in the forests of Kandhamal district of Odisha, the State Human Rights Commission has asked the government to order two separate probes – one by Additional Director General (Human Rights Protection Cell) and other by revenue divisional commissioner (southern range) – and submit the reports in four weeks. The rights panel passed the order on 10th August taking into account a civil fact-finding report submitted before it by the slain couple’s son Rahul Nayak.
On 26th July, according to the fact-finding report, Dalit Christian Duba Nayak (45) and his wife Budi Nayak (41) of Pangalpadar village, along with three other co-villagers, had gone to an adjacent hilltop in the Madaguda forest area of the Maoist-infested Kotagada block to make phone calls to their relatives, including their son Rahul who was staying in Kerala. While the three returned home, the bullet-ridden bodies of the couple were found next day. The villagers alleged they were killed by personnel of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) suspecting them to be Maoists.
Following the incident, a joint fact-finding team comprising Lok Shakti Abhijan State President Prafulla Samantara, CPI (M-L)-Liberation leader Tirupati Gamang, Narendra Mohanty, state convener of the Campaign against Fabricated Cases (CAFC), and journalist Lenin Kumar visited the spot on 30th July. The committee recorded statements from people including the three villagers who had accompanied the couple to the hilltop and the Police Superintendent of Kandhamal.
The fact-finding report recorded the statement of Sukant Chalanseth, one of three villagers who had accompanied the slain couple. Sukanta said that after finishing the phone calls, he and two others called Duba and his wife to return to the village, but they said they were yet to finish their calls and would return after a while.
Sukanta further said: “While returning to the village, we suddenly faced a group of Central Police Reserve Force (CRPF) personnel who stopped us at gun point. They asked about our identity and the purpose of moving in the forests. We told them about the phone calls and that Duba and his wife Budi might return later. The police did not ask any more questions and allowed all three of us going back to the village. After about an hour of our return, we and others in the village heard the sound of firing from the forest area.”
The slain couple’s son Rahul Nayak, 25, told the committee that he, along with two of his younger brothers, were talking with their parents over phone when suddenly he heard an “unnatural sound” from his mother and felt she was crying. “I guessed some people physically tortured my mother and when my father tried to protect her, they attacked him,” said Rahul.
The slain couple’s son further revealed they found the parents’ phone switched off afterwards and watched on an Odiya TV channel that there had been a cross-firing incident between the police and Maoists at the Madaguda- Kotagarg forest area. On enquiry, villagers informed them their parents didn’t return from the forests yet.
The bodies of the slain couple were sent by the administration to Kandhamal District headquarters Phulbani for postmortem. But when their relatives and villagers could not get their bodies on 27th July, they came out and blocked the main road of Kotagada. Finally, the administration handed over the bodies to the kin on 28th July and declared a compensation of Rs. two Lakh from the Red Cross fund and Rs. 20,000 in cash for their last rites.
